Tommy Dempsey sat at the center of the elevated press conference table and refused to sugarcoat his team’s narrow escape of Division II Bloomsburg on Saturday.

“You don’t go 3-27 and then come back with the perfect team,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen that way.”

He’s right.

That’s not to say Binghamton fans shouldn’t be excited about year two of the Dempsey era. Sophomore guard Jordan Reed has more potent options on offense with the returns of Rob Mansell and Rayner Moquete and a freshman class headlined by Nick Madray and Marlon Beck.

This roster boasts more talent than the 2012-13 version. Its chemical makeup should enable Dempsey to implement a faster-paced system, one that should — at times, at least — be reminiscent of his Rider squads.

The Bearcats will be more exciting than they were a year ago, but, like Dempsey implied, this team will experience its share of struggles.

By necessity, Dempsey will play four guards for significant chunks this season. The Bearcats will frequently face a disadvantage on the glass and as a result, they will surrender second-chance opportunities.

That will cause frustration, but if size issues could be Binghamton’s sole bugaboo, Dempsey would probably do double backflips on the Events Center concourse before and after every game.

Dempsey will play a sophomore and three — sometimes four — freshmen together. That’s a formula for mistakes galore, at least in the early going as the rookies adjust to the faster-paced college game. Beck and fellow frosh Yosef Yacob will share time at the point in a sport that values the upperclassman floor general.

If Saturday’s exhibition served as any indication, Binghamton’s shooters will also struggle at times. And with the NCAA’s stricter rules on hand-checking, the Bearcats — not exactly the definition of deep — could have to cope with foul trouble on a nightly basis.

The positive, though, is that basketball is a game of adjustments, and the four-month season provides plenty of opportunities to improve.

Dempsey and his staff can’t teach guards like Beck and Yacob to attack the boards with Reed-like fervor, but the two diminutive freshmen can learn to crash more consistently. All four freshmen will acclimate to the pace — some sooner than others, but there’s time. And every player in college basketball will have to learn to guard without his or her hands in order to stay on the floor.

Though Dempsey blamed himself for scheduling a veteran Bloomsburg squad in the exhibition game, he assembled a favorable non-conference slate.

The Bearcats won’t stand a chance against Syracuse. They probably won’t stand a chance against St. Joseph’s. But other than those two games, Binghamton can expect to at least stay close in — if not win — the rest of its non-conference games.

Don’t misinterpret that. The Bearcats will not carry a 10-2 record into America East play.

Buffalo and Bryant each pose potential matchup problems. Mount St. Mary’s forced 21 Binghamton turnovers, and Colgate routed the Bearcats last December. Even Loyola Md., which lost its head coach and several key players from last year’s team, will be favored over Binghamton in tonight’s season opener.

The 2013-14 Bearcats will excite the fan base. They’ll probably upset a good team down the road.

But they’ll frustrate the fans, too. They’ll allow second-chance opportunities. They’ll shoot 2-for-16 from 3-point range. They’ll turn the ball over. They will, in all likelihood, lose more games than they will win.

But Dempsey spoke the truth at Saturday’s press conference: No team responds to a three-win season with perfection.

The Bearcats don’t need perfection now. They need growth.